Day of Obligation
by tealitful
Summary: Luke and Penelope go to church.
1. Day of Obligation

"12 years of Catholic school..." -Luke Alvez, S12E15 -Alpha Male

* * *

Things were getting back to normal, or as normal as they could be in the BAU. Spencer was back, and the cases came and went; each left their scars on the minds of the agents. Except Stephen was gone and Matt was here.

Luke watched as Penelope and Matt joked with one another. Why was it that someone newer than him could get on her good side? He tried to take solace in the fact that he was able to joke with her now, but sometimes he wanted to share more. He didn't want their relationship to be one built on mild jeering. He wanted…

He didn't know what he wanted, and he didn't have time to figure it out because Penelope let out a shriek and started running towards the elevator. Luke shot up from his desk and moved his hand to his pistol. It had been a hell of a couple of months and he was still a little on edge, as much as he tried to hide it.

Spencer grabbed his wrist and shook his head. He understood what it was to be on edge. Luke let his arm fall back to his side and turned in the direction Penelope had run. She had her face shoved into the chest of some guy that seemed vaguely familiar. Spencer called out to them, and soon JJ, Emily, and Rossi were leading the man into the bull pin.

"Alvez," he said, extending a hand. Luke shook it. "Nice to meet you in less stressful circumstances."

Now he remembered; this was Derek Morgan. Someone else who Garcia liked more than him. More than anyone, maybe. Luke forced a smile. "Morgan! Come to take your job back?" It was a joke, but the fear was always there. He wasn't afraid they would fire him, of course. They would find a way to pay another agent, but he didn't know if he could handle seeing Garcia and him and the easiness they had together.

Morgan laughed, "No, I think being a stay at home dad is just my speed."

Relief flowed through Luke. Garcia was asking questions about little Hank and was he walking and how long did Derek think before he could say Aunt Penelope? Luke smiled at that. Garcia loved kids and loved being a godmother.

A few minutes later, everyone was packing up their things. Something about Morgan's wife wanting a night with Hank to herself was given as Morgan's reason for his visit, but Luke was pretty sure it was more than that. But what… oh! The text. Morgan was feeling guilt over sharing the text, probably because of what happened with Prentiss. And then, of course, there was Stephen and his widow and their kids.

Everyone was moving towards the elevator now, but Luke didn't move to go with them. "You not coming Alvez?"

Luke shrugged. "I already told my neighbor that I would be home to let Roxy out tonight, and I promised my ma I would be at church bright and early tomorrow."

"But tomorrow's a Thursday," JJ said, clearly confused.

"Yes, but tomorrow is the Assumption of Mary into Heaven: day of obligation in the Roman Catholic church. Knowingly missing it is akin to a mortal sin in the church," Reid said as he wrapped his scarf around his neck.

Luke sighed, "Yeah, well, my mother certainly seems to think so anyways. Knowing her, she'll call me 15 minutes after her mass gets out and ask me what the readings were."

From her spot on Derek's arm, Penelope groaned. "Great, now I have to go too!" She threw a glare to Luke, but there was nothing cold in it. "If I didn't know, it wouldn't have been a sin to not go, but you had to go and bring it up and now I have to go!"

Luke leaned against his desk and smirked. He quirked his head to the side and his voice softened in the way it only did when he spoke to her. "I didn't know you were Catholic, Garcia."

She put her hand on her hip and fixed him with a look. "My adoptive parents dragged me to church every Sunday and all the holy days. I still go when I get the chance. It's peaceful."

"Better not drink too much tonight then, Baby Girl," Derek said with a wink and a nudge.

In what Garcia would certainly describe as a show of macho manly masculinity, Alvez slung his bag over his shoulder and walked over to wait for the elevator with the others. "How about I pick you up tomorrow morning, then? If it's my fault for putting your soul in danger, I guess I have to take responsibility and make sure you get there."

Penelope pursed her lips before letting out a dramatic sigh. "My knight in shining armor... though I don't really think a knight would have put me in danger in the first place. Hey, on second thought, you aren't a very good knight!"

"So I'll pick you up at 7:30?" Alvez asked.

She let go of Derek's arm and took a step closer to Luke. "In the morning?"

"Mass starts at 8, Chica. Do you really want to roll into the church after the doors have been closed? Those things were engineered to creek and echo."

The rest of the team was clearly amused by this conversation, and Derek realized that this was a recurring thing, this bickering. Derek had to bite his tongue to hold back his laughter. He had never seen Penelope flirt like this. She was usually sugar and innuendo, but this was unbridled teasing and flustered hand gestures.

Derek would have talk to JJ and Prentiss Thursday night to figure out how this church excursion went.

* * *

Bzzzzzz

Something was buzzing.

Bzzzzzz

Something was buzzing, and Penelope Garcia couldn't tell if it was her head or something in her apartment, but she was getting ready stop it.

Bzzzzzz

Okay, it wasn't her head. Even her head wouldn't persist in the face of her agrivation. She sat up in bed, cursing at the way her head pounded in protest. She waited for the buzzing to start again.

…

Of course the it would stop as soon as she woke up! Of all the inconvenient- a knock at the door. Penelope shuffled over to the door and glanced through the peephole and pulled the door open.

"Of course it'd be you waking me up so early," she said as she turned on her heel and retreated back into her apartment.

Alvez chuckled and followed her in, shutting the door behind him. "I thought Morgan was gonna keep you from drinking to much."

Garcia paused and then groaned. "I completely forgot about church."

"I figured you might when Prentiss texted me that picture of you and JJ doing karaoke," he said, pushing a to-go cup of coffee she'd not noticed before into her hands. "I decided to swing by a few minutes earlier than I'd said, just in case you were ready to go."

She ignored the way he looked her up and down when he said this. "How'd you get in the building?"

"I tried to buzzing you a few times, but when that didn't work I flashed my badge at the front desk and they let me up."

"Some would say that's an abuse of power," she said, scurrying to her bedroom to change.

"Some would," he said, letting the banter lull. He sat on the couch in her living room and looked around, taking int the color and clutter. He'd been to her apartment before, but never inside. He liked how every corner screamed Penelope. It made him think of all the things she'd gotten for Roxy spread out around his place.

When she reappeared in the living room 10 minutes later, she looked simple and beautiful dressed in pink and white. Being that their relationship was largely based on arguing, she readily misinterpreted his staring.

"Don't you go saying anything. I am too hungover to deal with your judgey mcjudgerson looks today, and I don't exactly have the time to pretty myself up."

Luke held his hands up in mock surrender. "I was just going to say that you look really nice. I won't say it, though, since you clearly don't want to hear it."

She puckered her lips and stared at him for a moment, attempting to judge his sincerity. After a few seconds, she grabbed her purse and what was left of her coffee from her kitchen counter and moved towards the door, mumbling a stubborn thank you as she passed Luke.

* * *

The church was huge and absolutely packed. Even arriving 5 minutes early, as they had somehow managed to do, Luke and Penelope just barely managed to find a spot in one of the back pews next to an elderly couple who quickly took a liking to Luke and were speaking to him in Spanish about who knows what for the five minutes before mass began and in English for a brief time after mass had ended. The couple even invited Luke and Penelope to have breakfast with them. Penelope, not wanting to hurt the nice couple's feelings left Luke to explain that they had to be at work and would pick something up on the way.

At this the old woman sighed, grabbed Penelope's hand, and said, "You two had better be in Church on Sunday. We will save you a spot next to us. We will have breakfast then, si?"

Penelope found herself nodding and smiling. Old people had such a way of putting her at ease.

She wanted to ask Luke if he'd go with her again this Sunday, but as soon as they were back in his car, his phone rang. It took her a minute to realize that he was holding his phone in front of him and the older woman who appeared on the phone was talking a mile a minute in Spanish. Garcia felt like she was in am immersive language program.

"Ma!" Luke finally managed to get the woman's attention when he recalled the church readings. "See, I went to church, I swear."

Without thinking, Penelope spoke up. "I mean, that isn't definitive proof that you went to church. You could have just looked up the readings. The church puts out the readings for mass years in advance."

There was a brief moment were no one spoke, and then the Luke's mother switched to English. "I don't know who is in that car with you, but if she is right and you skipped church and just looked the reading up online, vas a estar en problemas."

Luke turned so that Penelope was also in the frame. "Ma, she went to church with me. She works with me at the FBI doing stuff with the computers," Garcia scoffed at the simplified explanation, "which why she was being so kind as to point out that you can find that stuff on the internet."

Luke looked over his shoulder at Penelope and gave her a pointed look that made him look a like a teenaged boy trying to get his friends to be polite around his mom.

"It's true Mrs. Alvez. Luke mentioned it was a day of obligation yesterday and offered to take me to church before we went to work."

Some tenseness left Luke's shoulders. Penelope wanted to laugh at how afraid of his mother's wrath he was. "See, Ma! Now me and Garcia gotta go or else we wont be able to pick up breakfast before work."

His mother's face twisted in confusion, but Garcia answered her question before she had the chance to ask it. "The name Garcia comes from my adoptive parents."

Mrs. Alvez laughed. "No, no, I was just remembering – that is – Luke has mentioned you I think. Luke, cariño, ¿es esta la mujer de la que te " _quejas"_?"*

Penelope was staring at Luke; she didn't know what Mrs. Alves had said when she'd switched to Spanish, but she did know that Luke had apparently been talking about her to his mother. She took slow breaths and told herself that Mrs. Alvez was probably recalling her name from one of the times Luke had talked about the entire team. Or a story about something funny she'd said in the office (she was pretty good at doing things people liked to recount to friends and family). Luke was blushing, though, and that made her nervous. Was he embarrassed of something? Maybe he'd said something not so nice about her to his mother? They had, after all, had a rocky beginning to their friendship.

Luke turned so that Penelope was no longer in the frame, spoke quickly to his mother in Spanish before stating, with annoyance emanating from his every pore, "Love you, Ma. Bye."

Before he could hang up, though, Penelope managed to hear his mother say very clearly (so clear Penelope thought for a moment that she must have imagined the entire thing because no cellphone had ever sounded that clear in the history of ever): "Love you too, baby. Tell your girlfriend I'm grateful she managed to drag you to church today."

And then Mrs. Alvez face disapeared and Luke's phone returned to its home screen.

Luke looked at Penelope.

Penelope looked at Luke.

They both buckled up and Luke started the car.

They drove for 5 minutes in silence, each trying to think of what to say to the other to cut the tension.

Penelope spoke first, "It was the other way around."

Luke scrunched up his brow and twitched his nose, a telltale sign of his confusion. "What?

"You dragged me to church, I didn't drag you."

"Yeah well," Luke smiled, "it's a day of obligation. I had to save your soul, didn't I?"

Penelope continued to look straight ahead. "Yeah, well, a good boyfriend wouldn't have brought it up and put my soul in danger in the first place."

* * *

 _Sorry if the Spanish is wrong; I took French because I was a pretentious fool in middle school (and I'm a quarter French)._

 _*Luke, baby, is this the woman you "complain" about?_


	2. Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Luke was nervous.

The team had left for a case a couple hours after he and Penelope had arrived from church, and landed back at Quantico on Saturday night. When he woke up on Sunday morning to feed and walk Roxy - despite his body's pleading to stay in bed - he thought about Penelope and his mom thinking she was his secret girlfriend and that old lady at church who said he and Penelope were such a sweet looking couple… That old lady who had said she had better see them at church today.

While Roxy was eating, Luke took a quick shower and threw on a pair of khakis and button up shirt. He hated the way it made him feel like a schoolboy, but his mother had always insisted on dressing for church. He put UP in the DVD player, fast forwarded through the first ten minutes, and called Roxy over to the couch.

"I'm gonna be gone for a couple hours, okay?"

Roxy barked an affirmative then whined.

"I know you and I normally spend all our time together when I'm home, but I have something to do. You remember Penelope?"

Roxy barked and affirmative then panted.

"Yeah, the one who spoils you rotten. I'm going to see her for a bit."

Roxy had lost interest at this point and chose to ignore his last statement. It didn't really merrit a response, after all. She settled her head on her front legs and her attention was quickly consumed by the movie.

Luke gave her a good scratch behind the ears and then left for Gacia's place. He sat in his car in the parking lot of her building for five minutes, starting and cutting the engine of his car. He took the keys out of the ignition. They hadn't agreed to go together or at all. He put the keys back in the ignition. If he didn't see her today he wouldn't be able to sleep. He took the keys out of the ignition.

He realized that if he was going to use church as an excuse, he had to move now.

Luke was even more nervous. He buzzed once.

And she buzzed him up right away.

Huh…

Rather than let him into her apartment as she had last time, she pushed him backwards and exited, locking the door behind her.

"'Bout time you showed up. If we're late, you're the one taking the heat from Sra. Ortega."

It was only when he heard the click clack of her heels getting quieter that he realized she was already heading towards the stairs, and he moved to follow. He jogged past her and opened the car door for her. He still hadn't said a word to her.

Penelope was nervous.

She fiddled with the radio until she found a station she liked. Her makeup was perfect and her hair was styled like Joan Crawford's and she hadn't even known if he was going to show up. She had opened her _stupid_ mouth and called him her _stupid_ boyfriend and she hadn't even had a chance to correct herself because the team got called away on that _stupid_ case.

She looked at him as subtly as she could from the corner of his eye. He looked like a schoolboy. A super beefy, beautiful schoolboy. A school man, really.

Penelope turned her head to look out the window. After all, if she couldn't see him, she might be able to get her thoughts together. When she'd managed to slow her breathing, she noticed that they were just barely crawling forward in the traffic.

"I think it's move in weekend for some of the colleges," Luke said when he noticed the wrinkle between her eyebrows

"So we probably aren't going to make it to church?' Garcia asked. They hadn't even exchanged pleasantries. What was she going to do if she was stuck in the car with him. She was planning on at least an hour at church to get herself collected and maybe get God on her side.

"We could pull off at the next exit and get breakfast," Luke suggested. If they got food he could sit across from her and she couldn't accuse him of staring. They could talk about whether he had to set his mom straight about Garcia or introduce her to Garcia. As far as he was concerned, there was no in between.

Garcia agreed, and they made it to an exit five minutes later. They pulled into the first restaurant they saw and Luke helped her out of the car. They slid into a booth and ordered their food. When they no longer had the menus as excuses, Luke decided the silence had to end.

"You know, I don't think I've ever been in a waffle house when the sun was out."

Garcia's laugh was like a startled bark. "I have, but I don't think I've ever been in one when I was sober."

The thin layer of ice that had settled over their bickering was broken, and the conversation flowed again. They ate their waffles while joking, and it was almost as if that moment from a few days ago had been erased.

But Luke didn't want to let it just fade into oblivion. They had come so far, and he couldn't just let that growth stop- not until it couldn't grow anymore, and he wasn't sure that would ever happen.

So he asked her. "Are we gonna talk about it?"

She paused for a moment before setting her for down, waffle still intact. Her voice was calm and measured. "Talk about what?"

He leaned forward, letting his forearms rest on the table. He looked like he was getting ready to interrogate a suspect. "Did what my mom say make you uncomfortable"

Despite her best efforts, she blushed. "Nothing makes me uncomfortable, Alvez, I'm unflinching. You should know that by now."

Luke doubled down on his advances. "Would you flinch if I told you that, me being her only son, my ma has probably got half our wedding planned already?"

"Only half?"

"She's a perfectionist. She takes her time."

There was a lull in the conversation, then, while each waited for the other to say something.

Penelope broke the silence, "We can't."

Luke sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why?"

"We work together!"

"So? It's not like you're my boss! And you don't work in the field, so it's not like we'll distract each other; no more than usual anyways."

Another stretch of silence and then, "Fine."

Luke stared at her, eyes wide. "Yeah?"

Penelope held up a single finger to stop him, "On a probationary basis."

He feigned seriousness, "Of course."

"And you're paying for breakfast."

"I was planning on it."

Garcia looked his smug, handsome face and tried to tell herself she would regret what she'd just agree, but she didn't believe.

"And," she said, "after you bring me back to my apartment, you may kiss me."

"Inside?"

"On the doorstep."

"Tongue?"

"We'll see."

* * *

It's done for real this time, guys! I only wrote a second chapter for the people that requested it. I've got a whole list of other Garvez stories to write.


End file.
